Dragonriders of Pern is a science fantasy series written primarily by American-Irish author Anne McCaffrey, who initiated it in 1967. Beginning in 2003, her middle child Todd McCaffrey has written Pern novels, both solo and jointly with Anne. The series comprises 24 novels and two collections of short stories. The two novellas included in the first novel, Dragonflight, made McCaffrey the first woman to win a Hugo Award for writing fiction as well as the first to win a Nebula Award.
Patricia Cornwell is an American crime writer. She is known for her best-selling novels featuring medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, of which the first was inspired by a series of sensational murders in Richmond, Virginia, where most of the stories are set. The plots are notable for their emphasis on forensic science, which has influenced later TV treatments of police work. Cornwell has also initiated new research into the Jack the Ripper killings, incriminating the popular British artist Walter Sickert. Her books have sold more than 100 million copies.
Bernard Cornwell is an English-American author of historical novels and a history of the Waterloo Campaign. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe. He has also written The Saxon Stories, a series of 13 novels about the making of England.
Bernard Malamud was an American novelist and short story writer. Along with Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer and Philip Roth, he was one of the best known American Jewish authors of the 20th century. His baseball novel, The Natural, was adapted into a 1984 film starring Robert Redford. His 1966 novel The Fixer, about antisemitism in the Russian Empire, won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
Maurice Bernard Sendak was an American author and illustrator of children's books. He became most widely known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, first published in 1963. Born to Polish-Jewish parents, his childhood was affected by the death of many of his family members during the Holocaust. Sendak also wrote works such as In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, and illustrated many works by other authors including the Little Bear books by Else Holmelund Minarik.
Anne Perry was a British writer best known as the author of the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt and William Monk series of historical detective fiction.
Sharpe is a series of historical fiction stories by Bernard Cornwell centred on the character of British soldier Richard Sharpe. The stories formed the basis for an ITV television series featuring Sean Bean in the title role.
Maile Meloy is an American novelist and short story writer.
Sharpe's Havoc: Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Oporto is the seventh historical novel in the Richard Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell, first published in 2003.
Sharpe's Eagle is a historical novel in the Richard Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell, first published in 1981. The story is set in July 1809, in the midst of the Talavera Campaign during the Peninsular War. It was the first Sharpe novel published, but eighth in the series' chronological order.
The Nock gun was a seven-barrelled flintlock smoothbore firearm used by the Royal Navy during the early stages of the Napoleonic Wars. It is a type of volley gun adapted for ship-to-ship fighting, but was limited in its use because of the powerful recoil and eventually discontinued.
Sharpe's Gold is the second historical novel in the Richard Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell first published in 1981. The story is set in August 1810 and features the destruction of Almeida during the Peninsular War.
Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by Collins Crime Club in October 1979 retailing at £4.50. It was the last Christie book to be published under the Collins Crime Club imprint although HarperCollins continue to be the writer's UK publishers.
"Sharpe's Christmas" is a short story by historical fiction author Bernard Cornwell. It features Cornwell's fictional hero Richard Sharpe. It was originally written for the British newspaper The Daily Mail, which serialised it during the 1994 Christmas season. An extended version was published by The Sharpe Appreciation Society in a short story collection of the same name in 2003 to raise funds for The Bernard and Judy Cornwell Foundation.
Sharpe's Challenge is a British TV film from 2006, usually shown in two parts, which is part of an ITV series based on Bernard Cornwell's historical fiction novels about the British soldier Richard Sharpe during the Napoleonic Wars. Contrary to most parts of the TV series, Sharpe's Challenge, as well as the follow-up Sharpe's Peril, is not based entirely on one of Cornwell's novels, but it uses and adapts some characters and storylines from Sharpe's Tiger (1997). Both are set in 1817, two years after Sharpe has retired as a farmer in Normandy, so chronologically they come after Sharpe's Assassin (1815) and before the final novel Sharpe's Devil (1820–21). Some of the events in the film are inspired by events in the first three novels of the series. In Sharpe's Challenge and Sharpe's Peril, Sharpe and his comrade in arms, Patrick Harper, have been temporarily called out of retirement and asked to go to India.
"Sharpe's Skirmish" is a historical short story by Bernard Cornwell in the Richard Sharpe series.
"Sharpe's Ransom" is a short story written by historical fiction author Bernard Cornwell. It features Cornwell's fictional hero Richard Sharpe. It was originally written for the British newspaper the Daily Mail, which serialised it during the 1995 Christmas season. In 2003 the Sharpe Appreciation Society combined it with another short story, "Sharpe's Christmas", in the collection Sharpe's Christmas.
Agatha Christie (1890–1976) was an English crime novelist, short-story writer and playwright. Her reputation rests on 66 detective novels and 15 short-story collections that have sold over two billion copies, an amount surpassed only by the Bible and the works of William Shakespeare. She is also the most translated individual author in the world with her books having been translated into more than 100 languages. Her works contain several regular characters with whom the public became familiar, including Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, Parker Pyne and Harley Quin. Christie wrote more Poirot stories than any of the others, even though she thought the character to be "rather insufferable". Following the publication of the 1975 novel Curtain, Poirot's obituary appeared on the front page of The New York Times.
Bernard Cornwell's career started in 1981 with Sharpe's Eagle. He has been a prolific historical novelist since then, having published more than 60 novels.
